Cops: Salon bandit was paying for cocaine habit

Man charged with robbing area hair salons. ( WGN - Chicago)

Man charged with robbing area hair salons. ( WGN - Chicago)

Jonathan Bullington and Brian CoxChicago Tribune

The man accused of holding up hair salons in Chicago and the suburbs used a BB gun, picked places where there would be no male workers, and told police the robberies paid for his crack cocaine habit, authorities say.

Jason Logsdon, 41, also used his girlfriend's car during at least one of the robberies, which finally led to his arrest this week, police said. He was tracked down in Skokie after someone at his last robbery on the North Side of Chicago provided a partial license plate number, authorities said.

Police said they recovered the BB gun along with a red coat that the Evanston man wore during the robberies.

Logsdon is accused of robbing a hair salon in Broadview, five in Chicago, one in Morton Grove, two in Niles and two in Skokie. The DuPage County state’s attorney’s office is pursuing additional charges against Logsdon for two robberies in Lombard, one in Glen Ellyn and one in Bensenville, officials said.

Logsdon, wearing a blue long-sleeved shirt and jeans, kept his head lowered during a hearing where Judge Marcia Orr ordered him held without bond. "I am considering the number of crimes in the short time in which they were committed," she said.

His public defender described Logsdon as a student at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Chicago. He was expecting to graduate in February, according to his lawyer. A spokesman at the school said he could not confirm or deny that information.

Logsdon is unemployed but has worked as a chef before, his lawyer said. He has lived in Evanston four years. He was arrested in 2003 for a DUI in Missouri, but otherwise has a clean record, lawyers said.

Logsdon was arrested after a salon in the Wicker Park neighborhood was hit. A man stole about $250 in cash from the Great Clips salon in the 1200 block of a well-trafficked North Ashland Avenue around 10:45 a.m. Monday, police said.

The man brandished a handgun before presenting a dark bag to three salon workers, which one of them filled with money, Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Daniel O'Brien said. Wearing a red and gray jacket, blue jeans and a hat and scarf, the man walked north on Ashland and hopped in a gray colored sedan, which left driving southbound, police said.

No one was injured, police said.

A witness from that robbery provided a license plate number that was one digit off, according to Brian Baker, Skokie’s commander in charge of the investigative division.

Chicago police ran variations on the number until they found a vehicle with a similar make and model as reported by the witness. The woman who owned the car had “no knowledge that these (robberies) were occurring,” Baker said.